Guest: Tyler
Host: Dwarkesh
Went to India for 6th time, read 100s of books, but traveling there is a deeper and different kind of knowledge
Prefer traveling over reading
What is Conquest’s law (note to self)
Doesn’t see left v right (eg, left wing, leftist politics) as consistent and historical categories
Doesn’t buy that famous / successful people in the past were more abused or had harder childhoods – lots of selection bias, historical bias
Disappointed at how geographically clustered “talent” is – today it’s places like London, NYC, etc
These talent clusters have been such for a long time – seems like an enduring effect
Talent comes from many different areas, but always migrates to these clusters – how good are these clusters at producing talent, versus attracting them?
Problem for SF – may be a more temporary cluster, not much historical persistence
Why did Renaissance blossom in Florence and Venice but not Milan? Hard to understand
High status thing to do is feign humility
Well-dressed 20 year olds (eg, suit / business) are too conformist for what he’s looking for
Nootropics – don’t personally like it, but does seem to work for some people
Doesn’t drink coffee
Believes 15-17 year olds among most neglected talented people – high schools should invite real local experts to talk to them
The best moral instruction (in classrooms) are teachers being good people
“Context is that which is scarce”
Kids learn a lot of context in school – even if they can’t memorize as many explicit facts – it’s the residual, it’s what matters
“Super talented are best at spotting other super talented individuals”
There are exceptions, not a science, but there’s some art / intuition to it
Will sometimes chew out certain people, try to light a fire under them
Not an EA (effective altruism) person, but like libertarianism it will continue for quite a long time
Need more religions – in the meantime EA will do
Emergent Ventures – applicants are remarkably bi-modal distribution – pretty clear who makes it vs doesn’t make it
Believes a lot of foundations give out too many big grants, not enough small grants – small grants are under-rated
Believes mental stamina / energy can increase significantly (eg, 30%) – but some people are gifted super stamina
Lots of geniuses can’t get out of bed in the morning – they’re stuck and you should write them off
Top level athletic performance is very cognitively intense – this is under-rated – you have to be really smart to practice, lead a team, outsmart competition, “very g-loaded”
“Whoever is the top gardener [in the world] – I suspect I would be super impressed by”
Should be more bullish on immigrants from Africa – hard to get out, so it’s a positive sign
US not into demographic decline yet – maybe so in Japan
Doesn’t worry as much about woke ideology – “if that keeps you down…I’m not so impressed by you”
“Europe isn’t woke enough in a lot of eyes… chauvinist, old fashioned”
Europe is less egalitarian (than America) – Paris is the extreme by status; too few dimensions of status competition
YC more like scalable business school now – could be stale in good sense like Harvard is stale
Novelists can blossom much later, very discrete act – won’t really know until you do it – makes it harder to predict talent
Existential risk matters more than almost anyone thinks – but the things we do to eliminate them are more typical than most EA believers think – also over worry about certain types of risks, “not epistemically modest enough”, eg, AGI alignment
After a modern nuclear war – humanity permanently set back, medieval living standards, feudalism, more violence – no reason to assume you just bounce back, more problems will appear after – crop failures, climate change, disease
“Existence of sex is most pessimistic thing there is” – can’t just stand still or you will die / be defeated – thus sex as requirement to force genetic diversity
Growing up, read a lot of sports and chess biographies
Has blogged for 20 years – importance of constancy – like a public biography
If only had 5 years to live, would focus more on Emergent Ventures – institution building and talent spotting
Most talented people have unique philosophies / worldviews – eg, Peter Thiel (on Gerard, one heretic belief) – need unique way of looking at the world, protects you from other peoples’ idiocy
Doesn’t bet as much on single ideas unlike, eg, Jordan Peterson – rationale is he wants to stay as broadly relevant for as long as possible
Leading by example is number one way we teach – specifically referring to his students at GMU (?)
Bloggers – as people who write publicly on regular basis – have been around for centuries – will survive a long time
Substack encourages posts that are too long, too whiny, too focused on a few topics
The more that progress advances, the easier it is to destroy things, easier to destroy than create – to square his short-term optimism with his long-term pessimism
Fukuyama has changed views often – one of his views is that rest of history is how we’ll manipulate biology
“Are you long the market or short the market?” – one of Tyler’s favorite forcing questions
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And this is what Stable Diffusion thinks is a “lunar society, podcast interview, two people”:
